Avenger, page 28
part #2 of Swords and Skulls Series
Vetra caught a furtive movement in the court below. A squat, skulking shape with a beak? The figure was gone in a flash and a cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck.
Caglios broke out in a grin of curious amusement. “You seem jittery, Vetra. Is everything all right?”
“Fine,” assured Vetra. “A nervous mannerism only.”
“I have several herbs for you, if not smelling salts, that will lend aid with this type of malaise. I divine that you have had a rough haul these past days?”
“Nothing that can’t be remedied—and no herbs today for me, thank you. What about you? You seem to be in lively spirits this afternoon and up to your ears in industry.”
Caglios smiled with an air of pride. “You are observant, and slightly dry in humour today, Vetravincus. ’Tis nothing.” He waved a pale, gnarled hand. “Mere trifles in the realm of things. The great masters of the Five Ages have tallied so many phenomenal works! In the wake of their achievements we can only be humbled.” With a sigh, he flourished and his eyes assumed a faraway look. “Humankind is but an innocent babe in the arms of a winsome maiden, in a world rich with monsters, seraphims, crafty overlords and wolves. But I maunder on! ’Tis only the Malimon I forge here. A singular talisman. A miracle set of armour to protect the wearer. Watch as I don it! Peson, Gisryn! Fetch me the armour and strike me!”
The foremost imp whimpered with bemusement, unsure of what its master wished.
“Hurry! You know the penalties of disobedience. Tarry at your peril.”
With a squeak, the imp stumbled on short legs to take down the light, gleaming set of silver plate hanging on a trim stand. He brought it piece by piece to the master and helped him don it, and it seemed to adjust to his contours with surprising ease. When Caglios had donned helm, breastplate and arm and shin greaves, the imp coursed forward with the poker raised. The iron rod bounced off the wizard’s chest as if the old man wore a foot of protecting iron.
“Impressive!” grumbled Vetra.
Caglios nodded in approval. He doffed the armour and laid it on the floor, blinking expectantly. With a playful toe, he nudged the imp, who stared wide-eyed in the forge-light, neglecting to put the armour back in its proper place. He turned his attention with sharp inquiry upon the mercenary. “So, what have you brought for me today?”
Vetra paused, gauging his options. He threw down the fragment of collar on Caglios’s workbench. It rolled to a stop, glowing with lurid intensity in the pale light. “Only this.”
The wizard’s eyes rounded. “What? I thought your powers greater than this? I gave you an intact magic item, a legitimate relic, and you flippantly throw down nothing more than a ruined version of it. What have you done? Where is my idol?”
“Questions that surely must be burning in your mind,” Vetra grunted savagely. He glared venomously at the collar.
“And?” Caglios’s voice trailed off in cold inquiry, drowned by the crackling of fire from hearth and forge.
Vetra’s voice rose in an ugly snarl. “You threw me and my men to the dogs! There was no hope of survival on that mission. You knew it! Rojarsh, rest his rat-hearted soul, would have slit our throats. But I’m curious as to your twisted motive. It’s puzzled me for many a day. Kept me awake, tossing in my bed.”
“A shame about your insomnia,” Caglios remarked, “but daring of you to come here with nothing to show for it.” He stroked his button-like chin. “For your courage I will appease your foolhardy whim and fill you in on some details.”
“Please do so,” Vetra grated harshly, swinging his gleaming weapon.
Caglios sighed. “You swashbucklers are all the same. Listen! The temple city is a complex, ornate society. Once, many years ago, I was under-priest at the Temple of the Clam. There I met Rojarsh and discovered the art of conjuring through voice. An obscure power known as ‘aural tossing’—this amongst other things, including magical transference, became items of fascination for me. I also came to acquire certain knowledge of the legend of the ‘falcon man’, ‘Dapi’. As you see, I am now an adherent of Dapi.” He motioned a ringed finger at the small shrines set about his workroom. Various falconish memorabilia was inset in their scrollwork and designs and littered on their altars: polished beaks, painted skulls, talons, incense vessels, candles. “These fanes are only garish props, outward manifestations of the real god power, but help me channel the power of the god—and somewhat recently, a new fixation, Smarg the elephant god.” He laughed. “A little aside, I am somewhat of a dilettante in this area, as you can see by the many symbols of my gods. Over there, regard, on my altar.” Vetra’s eyes darted to where the spellcaster gestured. “The ivory trunk and inset jewels are of rare quality. Pay close attention to the barbed wings and trunks of the horned elephant idol. Perhaps you encountered the followers of Smarg on your sojourn to the temple?”
“I was denied the pleasure,” Vetra said coolly.
“Pity. ’Tis truly a worthy experience. The temple is not to be missed. The sandstone palms, the ferns, the scrolled columns. But I digress.”
“Iokru says the collar has power, even when sundered, having been touched by the god.”
Caglios lips parted in a smile. “No doubt he did.” He turned the item over in his hands with amusement. “The collar of Dapi pulses with a weird energy. Nothing is of its like. Try to touch it!” He held it out for Vetra to grasp, but the mercenary just scowled at him and said nothing. “It’s been tainted by the god himself in bygone days. No matter. I will use the relic, despite its damaged form to craft my new shield!” He tilted his head back in a cackle and curled the collar round his wrist, moulding it, pressing it by some unknown means, to wear it like a bracelet.
Vetra thought the wizard slightly mad.
But his assessment was premature, for the wizard’s glare grew deadly. “You were only supposed to douse the idol with the clear waters of the pool. I see by all the killings in the region and your sudden appearance here that you must have failed. I required that task done correctly to ‘wet’ the sorcery, withal to maintain a measure of control. Fool! Despite the mesmeric suggestions I gave you when you were last here, you have released the demon through blind ignorance. Now you have brought it here! Idiot. Or what is that queer thing I see creeping around my courtyard?” He strode over to the open window and peered down. “Ah! I am proven correct! Dapi skulks in his most demonic form.”
“My heart bleeds,” snorted Vetra. Though his contempt was masked by the fact that the wizard seemed calmly unconcerned by the presence of the violent god lurking nearby.
“Well, the truth then,” Caglios said with a sigh. Stepping away from the open window, he gave an impatient hiss. “I knew that if by chance you managed to succeed in this little mission, as slim a possibility as that might be, I would have acquired a talisman in the form of Dapi. If you failed, I would have had the last laugh. For a fact I knew Rojarsh would make sacrifices of you, leaving no witnesses. Egad—he feeds all to his bloodthirsty god; I would have fulfilled my obligation to him for taking me under his wing at the temple. Knowing the value of the collar, he would have lusted after it, then easy for me to steal it back at a later date. He alone would know from my nature how I duped you, and how I had led such innocent lambs to the slaughter.”
Anger boiled up in Vetra’s throat. “What of the gold you paid me?”
“The gold is nothing to me.” The wizard flourished. “I can find crates of it in the ruins of Yaeshar not a few leagues away. Fools! All mercenaries are avaricious fools.”
Vetra clenched his fists. “And what are you but an arrogant spellcaster who has spread lies in order to recruit valiant men?”
The Sorceas’s left eye twitched. “What you do not know is that I laid a spell on you, with the wish or suggestion, that before you left for the temple of Dapi you would return me my collar. You were not supposed to let the collar out of your sight for an instant, unless it was snapped around the winged god’s neck. You failed in bridling the god and bringing me a peacable Dapi. But yet you returned me the collar—” he gazed at its broken curve with disfavour. “The fact that you are standing before me is a miracle.” He looked at Vetra with a new curiosity. “If I had time I would perform a divination on you, then I could look deep into your soul and discover what actually went on down there in the canyon.”
Vetra’s limbs shook. A flood of understanding washed over his being. Suddenly he realized that his compulsion to hang onto the collar all this time had been the wizard’s doing and had cost him the lives of his men. “So, the collar was bewitched.” He bared his sword, pricked by a sudden urge for revenge.
Caglios chuckled with a sad smile. “I have to protect my investment. Your gold is on the table, Vetravincus. Take it. ’Tis three bags of coin minus two. Two less for your failure. Be glad that I don’t extract more toll than I am of mind.”
“To hell with your gold!” thundered Vetra. “To hell with Dapi. And to Dergath with your blood money and your evil machinations.” He threw down the handful of coins he carried in his pockets on the table. The veins stood out on his forehead. “I lost two associates and a friend, who would have been faithful allies to me in the future, because of your trickery.”
The wizard shrugged. A soft sigh escaped his thin lips. “So goes the tides of fate.”
“Take your collar and eat it.” On swift strides, Vetra rushed to gut the blackguard. “This is for Kalaman and Laskar!—” Gleaming steel whistled in the air, eager to cut a chunk out the wizard’s throat.
But Caglios was spry and sprang back on nimble feet. He reached a hand for an object under his robe. “Back, I say!” His imps stepped between mercenary and wizard. “Careful, sword meister! Lest I sic Gisryn and Peson on you.”
Vetra gave a mocking snort. The imps flashed hot tongs and poker at him. They grew sullen with small, pale grimaces on their noseless faces.
Vetra was in no humour for games. He kicked out viciously and sent one of the creatures back into the blazing hearth. The other, he batted with the flat of his sword and sent it wailing on its haunches. Gisryn flung himself out of the fires, whooping and dancing like an ape trying to douse the flames from his leather jerkin.
“So much for your idiot imps,” called Vetra. “Anything else to throw at me?”
Caglios gave a cackle of sinister laughter.
Furtive noises drifted from the open window—the clacking of claws and beak on stone. The croak of a familiar, weird bird had chills shivering down Vetra’s spine. A flurry of wings became a dismal beat on the reality of day as a dim, impressive form came clawing its way over the sill.
Vetra stared, rooted on spot. The thing couldn’t fly, but it had managed to crawl its way slowly up the rough stone wall.
“Ah, a twist of fortune!” the wizard chortled. “The broken collar... Dapi drawn to the thing of its bondage. I should have known you had tricks up your sleeve. I seem to have underestimated you, Vetra. No matter!” He turned with appreciation. “And what have we here? A god—or is it half a god?”
Dapi had grown and was as ugly as ever—dirty, green and bloodstained, poised on the sill like some alien baboon, with broken wings outstretched in hideous glory, its beaked, inhuman face leering. The mournful, aristocratic features of the long-dead prince radiated in the bird-like face stronger than ever. The slightly down-turned beak was gored and caked with noxious layers of blood of untold victims. Tiny human-arms reached up and flexed baby fingers. It was a monstrous perversion of nature, prematurely-birthed, an aberration of the universe.
Dapi hopped down from the sill and clacked awkwardly toward the two. With the briefest study of their startled faces, it shrieked a vile cry while Caglios raised his arm with the bracelet as shield. The movement seemed to ward off the beast’s advance. The imps scattered and cowered behind the armour stand and the worktable.
Caglios calmly assessed the god-bird, his hand on chin, as if the five-foot-high creature with its jagged half of wing and blood-smeared beak and vaguely prince-like face were nothing more than an intellectual curiosity versus a force of brutal savagery.
Vetra lurched sideways. The thing flew at him and a sharp stone talon grazed his temple. He wiped away the stream of blood. He remembered all that the god-bird was capable of and with a short quick gasp, leaped back, sword whistling in front of him to avert disaster.
But now it was his turn for a cruel grin to crease his blood-dripping face as the thing launched itself at the wizard. Caglios dodged like a spider, bracelet held high. He leaped over a stool and scrabbled under the workbench, cackling insanely.
Vetra had no doubt about what would be his fate if he remained locked in close quarters with that god-brute, and he began edging back, searching for any way to stay out of the thing’s clutches. Desperately, he ran over to the armour stand and, on a sudden impulse, grabbed the breastplate. Would it fit him? He donned the shiny plate; it snugged around his torso like magic, courtesy of Caglios’s sorcery. He fitted the helm, next snapped down the visor. The magical metal felt hot to his skin, hanging only a few yards from the hearth.
He snatched up his sword and stood teeth-clenched while Dapi looked up from its advance on Caglios, assessing him with a cool, evil gaze. He strode to meet it.
The bird smashed beak into his chest, knocking him back. But the armour held; likewise the helm when the bird veered in to ram him from the side.
Vetra picked himself up and charged with shattering force, slashing with blade, drawing sparks on the devil’s stone. He smote two-handed: savage, brutal strikes that were the hews of gods in his strange armour. He cursed the stony, bloodstained brute that faced him, his every strike taking the weight of myriad past aggressions out on the fiend. Yet his sword could not penetrate that ghoulish jade. As strongly as it was forged, it was no match for the idol’s stone, nor did it notch, but struck more sparks. Such was the resilience of its metal.
The two struggled in deadlock.
The beast croaked, words not altogether un-human.
“God-bringers...all of you must die!”
Vetra froze in midstep. The voice was that of a man’s, not a bird spirit.
Caglios panted, visibly pale with sweat, but still with a thin, high grin on his face. “Die?” he cried out in amusement. “What do you mean, Dapi…‘die’? You are but a killjoy!”
The bird stepped up to its full height, towering like a man, croaking, its wings a-flutter.
“I am alive...only by the whim of my maker, yet the gods shun my very existence. The prince in me that was Dapi is dead...I talk, only as a living memory of a man passed from the plane of existence, who flies with all the other lost souls...I live, but only in hours of darkness. I lie stretched on the rack of life, tortured by the gods’ fire and brimstone, bound by searing chains thick as pythons...I have but dim memory of being animated by a savage god whom I know not, yet bound by a wizard’s curse...I curse you, Caglios...all of you fire-setters...and I curse men, all men...and wizards throughout time...For that you must die!...”
Caglios frowned. “Well, that’s an unhappy speech to bring so early in the day.” He waved a jaunty hand, as if to dismiss the god-demon’s lament. “I see that you are becoming more of your old self, Sir Prince, what with your tongue able to frame such eloquent words. For this, I am sufficiently impressed and pleased. Why don’t we sit down and chat over this like sensible men and demons? I’ll have the imps serve tea in the parlour. We can—”
“Silence your tongue!” roared the god miserably. “Your hosting means nothing to me. You’re a dead man, wizard. Prepare to meet your doom!”
Caglios frowned, rubbing his chin in indignant surprise. “I had planned to take a stroll about the shops later on.”
The god gave a screech and flung itself at the wizard with barbaric ferocity known only to a creature of its kind.
Caglios dove back under the worktable. The Sorceas was not so dim as to have left all his escape routes blocked off. With a smug smile, he popped up on the other side of the table, reaching for a diamond-shaped talisman in progress.
Dapi hopped up on the table and scattered talismans every which way, making a ruin of Caglios’s precious objects and assemblies. The wizard crouched, a blinking spider, to launch the talisman right at it, blasting it with his magic.
A green, glasslike smoke enveloped the leaping shape and pitched it back on its haunches. The elephant shrine came crashing down in a shower of shards and broken glass. Enraged, the god burst through the holding screen of pale green smoke that somehow protected the wizard.
Caglios’s smirk vanished. The horrific beak came snapping at him out of the eerie cloud—in a fiendish blur that clipped off his arm at the elbow.
The wizard uttered a bloodcurdling howl. The collar fell free from his bodiless arm, clattering on the floor. The god fastened claws on the collar as if to were to tear it to bits with its beak. But the magical item had a mind of its own. It tore loose from the clacking talons and, as if compelled to be whole again, the same way it had in Iokru’s fist, fitted together with the fragment around the bird’s neck. Dapi’s small, human-like hands clawed at the hated ring, trying to rip it off.
Caglios sank to his knees, bleeding profusely. He cried out in agony, watching the events as a dreamer witnesses a nightmare. Wizard and mercenary stared in horror as if by strange providence, the god became whole.
Vetra’s jaw sagged. Somehow Caglios’s magic had failed him, and now the wizard lay in bleeding ruin.
But Caglios had not become the wizard he was to bleed out at the feet of some god-cursed fiend. Somewhere the collar had not lost its force, only its primal directive. With his good right hand, he cupped the elbow that gushed blood and managed to cauterize the wound with whatever magic powers he still retained. The same trembling hand reached for the strange, brilliant orb cached earlier in his robe. It flashed in his palsied hand and pushed down on a hidden depression.
The orb pulsed twice, then a sudden wicked gleam of light flew out, and smote the collar about the bird’s neck.
